We had the pleasure of going to a talk today given by Ray McGovern, former CIA operative and counsel to Presidents Kennedy, Reagan and George H W Bush.
As a result of his experience watching US Imperialism first hand, he is now a committed Anti-War Activist.
Ray McGovern leads the “Speaking Truth To Power” section of Tell The Word, which is a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. He currently teaches a course called “On The Morality Of Whistleblowing,” at the Servant Leadership School.
He gave us the following statistic: USA holds 50% of the world’s wealth and is 6.5% of its population.
He said Americans have a responsibility to pay attention to the horrors of war. For instance, in WW2, 27 million Russian people were killed, as compared to 850,000 Americans. You can see why Russia is not buying all the war mongering coming from the Democrats and Mainstream Media.
The refugee crisis is directly related to the regime change policies of our country. We created it. No one talks about it, not news outlets, not our elected officials.
We have a responsibility to help refugees in our communities, and we must do everything in our power to face the suffering they have had to endure.
We have a Single Payer bill in Pennsylvania. We did an economic impact study proving billions would be saved and everyone would be covered. We all want it. The time is NOW!
Americans used to exist exist in a Zombie state because they thought the ACA (Obamacare) and the employer based healthcare system was acceptable or inevitable. Then the insurance premiums skyrocketed and Americans thought Trump could deliver a solution.
Just because it’s what we’ve always had doesn’t mean we have to continue with an insanity where we keep chipping away at a broken system, thinking that suddenly it will work after 60 years of failure.
Bernie Sanders woke America up to the possibility of a Single Payer Universal Medicare For All system. There were others before him but Bernie pulled this issue front and center.
Polls show the majority of Americans now want Medicare For All, especially now that the Republican healthcare bill presented the truth of a country virtually without any healthcare at all.
My husband used to receive his health insurance policy through my employer. I remember receiving a ten page letter with confusing instructions saying that if I did not provide proper documentation proving that my husband 1) is my husband 2) that he does not receive health insurance from his place of work 3) he will be dropped from our policy at a designated time.
Wading through the language of this letter was time consuming and frustrating. This experience led me to conclude that these jobs where we go and punch a time clock every day are nothing more than indentured servitude, a form of job-lock where you are stuck in a job with no hope of breaking free for fear of losing health insurance, whose coverage was getting less and less adequate every day.
Now my husband and Iboth have Medicare and I want everyone else to have that, too.
Wendell Potter, author of Nation On The Take and Deadly Spin, and former heath insurance executive, was radicalized by his epiphany at seeing the health insurance companies for what they are: cold blooded murderers. He too was in a zombie state, answering to stock holders everyday instead of facing spot on the suffering of families who everyday lose their loved ones when health insurance companies deny their claims.
Now Wendell Potter is one of us.
We are the only industrialized nation who does not have a civilized healthcare system. Even South Africa implemented a Single Payer healthcare system, after the collapse of Apartheid.
The employer based healthcare system is America’s very own brand of Apartheid. We are held down and brutalized everyday here in America by the health insurance companies.
The corporate mentality, shop until you drop, watch TV until you’re comatose, plus pharmaceutical drug and alcohol abuse has dropped a curtain over the American psyche.
The following is a list of non-violent acts of Civil Disobedience that other movements, such as the American Civil Rights movement, the Gay Rights movement, all the anti-war movements and anti-nuke movements used with great results.
1) Refuse to pay health insurance premiums since they aren’t paying when you get sick, anyway.
2) Start a campaign involving demonstrations every weekday for a year in front of health insurance companies all across America. These demonstrations would showcase caskets and poster pictures of people who died as a result of denied care.
3) Stage sit-ins at insurance companies and outside Capitol Buildings protesting Apartheid of the employer healthcare system in America.
4) Organize boycotts of health insurance and pharmaceutical paid advertising on all the shows that air such ads, and organize teach-ins to educate people to question insurance company tactics of skyrocketing premiums all the while keeping the vision for a Medicare For All system.
Watch Independent Media, instead. More on Independent Media later.
5) Partake in Nonviolent Civil Disobedience training.
6) All acts of violence must be rejected such as physical violence against others, including police and health insurance executives.
7) Practice Nonviolence
Gandhi’s vision on nonviolence is translated as “Truth Force,” meaning both the determination to speak out even when your truth is unpopular, and the willingness to listen to other people’s experience. Gandhi also outlined two other components of nonviolence: the refusal to harm others, and the willingness to suffer for one’s belief.
Practicing “Love They Enemy” is a process of great spiritual power. Adapting an attitude of respect, support and love will prevent verbal violence such as snide and vicious tones of voice, interrupting, shouting down or misrepresenting what people say, which are the antithesis of respectful communication.
Practicing nonviolence includes expanding awareness of the dignity and humanity of self and others, and is the courageous meditation of love and good-will to all living creatures, even health insuranceexecutives.
Wendell Potter demonstrates that even health insurance executives can have a wake-up call.
Healthcare reform does not mean health insurance reform.
As the new health care bill is being considered for passage, notice the conspicuous absence of women, as these politicians attempt to drop the ax on women’s healthcare, maternity care, maternity leave and reproductive freedom.
Politics is a reality of our outer lives. We deal with politics in the workplace where hopefully we work out differences for the higher good of the organization.
We encounter politics in our churches, in healthcare settings, at tax time every year, at animal hospitals, in the voting booth.
If we practice cheerfulness and kindness in all our endeavors, we bring our own brand of spirituality to these daily encounters.
I will be reflecting on the convergence of spirituality and politics on this blog. Where does one end and the other begin?
Do they flow together?
When the two are separate, do we suffer the consequences?
Are there consequences?
Are these challenges remedied when politics of any situation and spirit are integrated once again?
Politics in Washington appears to be devoid of all spiritual connection, of light or transformation. The right wing takeover of America has been happening for many years. Trump is the culmination of a political climate that ceased to care about the people of America.
I’ve come to believe this, especially in light of the recent cabinet picks, the healthcare bill, budget cuts and overall cold hearted approach to all who live in America, except for the Billionaire class.
As this post goes to press, the healthcare bill died without a vote.
Paul Ryan stated in his press conference a few hours ago: “Obamacare is the law of the land.”
